


supercut

by gokurakuji



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), High School Reunion, House Party, International School Students, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gokurakuji/pseuds/gokurakuji
Summary: The last thing Soobin expected from his not-quite high school reunion was to end up in a bedroom making out with the kid who was two years his junior.
Relationships: Choi Soobin/Huening Kai
Comments: 42
Kudos: 407





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**Author's Note:**

> **some content warnings:**  
>  \- past underage smoking, use of recreational drugs, and drinking  
> \- kai is still 20 so technically he's not allowed to smoke or drink either
> 
> **minor pairings include:**  
>  \- (past) yeonjun/ofc  
> \- (one-sided) soobin/beomgyu
> 
> this fic is set in suburban jakarta because why not.
> 
> **[EDIT] an extra paragraph (200 w) was added to this fic on June 6, 2020.**  
> 

It’s a nice house.

Soobin likes the house. He did back then and he still does. Even like this, with faux purple-blue-green strobe lights flick-flickering over the dimmed glow of the chandelier, even through the smokescreen of Camels and Sampoerna Milds, the same Post Malone song blaring through the speakers the third time in a row—even like this, it’s still the prettiest house Soobin has ever been in.

During his third year of high school, when he only had started to go to house parties, this house was definitely top-most in the list of host candidates. It had everything: parents who were away often, a for-hire cleaning service that rotated workers instead of the usual live-in maid, the sheer size of it. Perfect formula.

Beomgyu’s saint of a chauffeur drove them both to and from the house, past the brush of banyan and willows in the dead of night in this old money neighbourhood. Metropolitan Jakarta’s outskirts suburbia.

The lawns are sprawling, one house far apart from the other. Soobin would have a green bottle of Bintang by the second-floor window overlooking the pool and thought of how the blunt darkness outside made it seem as if the house was floating in its own orbit.

A world alone for wayward kids with too much money.

He remembers that a first-year kid owned the place. Well, at least a first-year kid back when Soobin was in his third year of high school. The kid must be in college now, like everybody else in this impromptu house party.

What was his name again? It was a funny name for a white kid. Kai, was it?

 _Stranger Things_ , Yeonjun called him. Soobin first heard it from Yeonjun but he’s positive Yeonjun wasn’t the one to coin that nickname. High school kids are criminally straightforward, the Kai kid looked like that child actor from Stranger Things so they all called him Stranger Things. Not the actor’s name, obviously, that wasn’t funny enough.

Soobin wonders if the alumni still called him Stranger Things. After all, Soobin graduated when Kai was in his first year. A lot of things can happen in two years, nicknames can change.

But it doesn’t matter. Soobin didn’t know him back then and he probably won’t see him tonight. There are too many people. They’re crowding the furniture and loiter in a noisy hum, a white-noise screech of shoes that are too much of a hassle to take off indoors.

It’s like a reunion except it’s not. All Soobin’s been doing is going round between groups saying _long time no see_ and being introduced to college buddies from overseas universities whose faces he’ll forget the moment he finishes saying _see you around_.

He’s only had two drinks but everything’s spinning already. Faces change too fast for him to keep up.

At one corner of the home bar where they’ve ended up, Yeonjun shoves a plastic cup at him. “Here, you’d like this,” he decides on Soobin’s behalf.

The liquid inside is traffic-light red and Soobin scrunches his nose. “Thanks for the highlighter fluid, hyung.”

“Stop being so ungrateful and just trust me.”

Soobin shrugs. He’s had more questionable drinks in his life, this one won’t hurt. Then he takes a sip and of course Yeonjun is always right.

He groans. “Fuck, this is the best thing I’ve put in my mouth tonight.”

“Told you so.” Yeonjun takes out two other plastic cups from the stack, looking as smug as ever.

While they’re there, Soobin drinks half of it shamelessly just so he could get an instant refill. “What is it?” he asks.

“Part Sprite, part vodka or gin I think, and that syrup people have during Ramadan.”

Soobin lifts his eyebrows. Great, let’s hope this is a cultural thing and not a religious thing. He figures it’s worth it; he downs the rest of the drink in one go. “It tastes familiar,” he says. “Like something my maid used to make me.”

“It’s the syrup.”

“Marjan?”

“Dingdingding, we have a winner!” Yeonjun cheers, holding his hand out for Soobin’s empty cup. “Have a refill as your prize.”

“Top it off, hyung.” Soobin grins.

Yeonjun pours out another cup for Soobin, a cup for himself, and then an extra one to bring back with them where Yeonjun’s university friends from England have parked themselves in one of the good spots in the house: the sunken living space in the living room with the L-shaped sofa and designer cushions.

Yeonjun’s university friends are two locals. They met in the UK and agreed to hang out back here in Jakarta while they’re all on their summer break. Soobin knows neither of them personally, but they’re a hilarious pair and Soobin thinks he’s having fun.

Because that’s just how Yeonjun is, he’s got a good eye for people.

One of them is Yeonjun’s ex. Yeonjun sits next to her on the sofa and gives her the extra cup. She receives it with a smile. Their hands don’t touch but their knees do.

What Soobin heard was that they broke off on clean terms. Yeonjun meant it; there are very little things in life that Yeonjun doesn’t mean. Soobin’s always been jealous of that side of him, because Soobin thinks he’s never really grown up properly. He’s never meant what he said and never said what he really meant.

The taste of spicy tteokbokki diluted in a glass of water, the beaten t-shirt he never returned, the eraser he stole when he was thirteen.

A four-month friendship he was afraid he’d end is now close to nine years.

Like the box of childhood toys in his bedroom closet he’s not ready to part with yet, someday he has to throw it away.

Yeonjun’s other university friend, the one who isn’t his ex, has a fancy name. Aslan, like the lion from Narnia. He sits next to Soobin and they talk comfortably about Soobin’s time in the military, why he calls Yeonjun hyung (they were in the same school year but Yeonjun is a ‘99 while Soobin is an ‘00), and Aslan’s Muslim high school with kids who went to Friday prayers at half-past twelve p.m. and pitched in for a bottle of Hennesy at 9 p.m.

“Gotta balance things one way or another,” Aslan says, swirling his cup of something dark. The colour’s difficult to tell in this flashing green light. Long Island iced tea? Coke and rum?

Soobin himself is running out of his spiked Marjan. Night’s turning slow and late, Yeonjun has had enough drinks to lean his head on Soobin’s shoulder, eyelids falling heavy.

Soobin tries to not jostle him when he asks Aslan, “Do you eat pork?”

“Not sure.”

“Not sure?”

“You’re pardoned if you don’t know what kind of meat it is,” Aslan says.

Soobin’s little finger brushes against Yeonjun’s on the sofa. “So you don’t ask?”

Aslan shrugs, a sheepish smile on his face. He might not know what meat he eats but he knows well the drinks he drinks.

For once after what has seemed like a Spotify This Is playlist for Post Malone, the song switches to a time-tested oldie.

“Oh shit.” Yeonjun startles awake. “It’s Mr Brightside.”

His ex stands and beckons him up. “C’mon,” she says. “You don’t want to sleep on this one.”

Yeonjun grabs her outstretched hand and stands, too. He still has a few left of his drink and he leaves the cup with Soobin. “You can have all of it.” Yeonjun winks, and then he disappears along with his ex onto the makeshift dance floor between the furniture cleared of all breakables.

Soobin shares a look with Aslan. He finishes the little bit of liquid left in Yeonjun’s drink and fits the empty cup under his own that’s still filled.

He chats some more with Aslan until the smoke from their Marlboros starts to sting Soobin’s eyes and he excuses himself to the restroom.

He wades through the hazy, spreading fog of nicotine and bad dancers, and was relieved to find no line for the bathroom. From what he recalls, Kai’s got two on the first floor, but this deep into the party there’s usually an occupied room.

There’s a couple making out in front of the bathroom door. Soobin has to say sorry, break them apart, and slither in between them but it’s all cool. They don’t mind a single bit, tangled together again after the intrusion.

It feels so much like high school and Soobin wants to laugh. Who still hooks up on the hallway in their age? That’s tacky.

But he doesn’t recognize the couple and usually that means they’re wealthy acquaintances from the local schools, and he has to spare them because not everybody went to high schools where couples made out in front of the lockers. Or maybe they’re Kai’s age, a few years shy of becoming burnt-out college kids.

Whoever they are, this is their time. Soobin is done with his.

The moment Soobin shuts the bathroom door, the music dulls down and it’s only then that he makes out Fall Out Boy’s _Uma Thurman_. Somebody must’ve taken over music duty, it’s been solely playing alternative for quite a while.

He sets down his cup with the one sip of drink left on the sink counter. A tad tipsy, but he’s not out of it. He’s too old to be wasted at house parties, but isn’t that what he’s here for?

Because everything’s moving too fast.

Something sluggish inside him would rather stay home and finish the Final Fantasy VII remake he just bought on Steam, eating chips with chopsticks so he doesn’t get the powder all over his controller. But he’s just back from the military and everybody else his age is graduating in a month while he has to do all of his moving to another cramped apartment room in Tokyo from scratch, all over again.

On top of the pile of rejection emails in his gmail inbox, there’s an acceptance mail for an internship at an insurance company starting October.

It made him equal parts happy and relieved when he read it the first time. A week’s passed and now he’s terrified. Insurance company?

He thinks he’s a kid but he’s not one anymore. His youth is wasted on tequila shots at fourteen and now he’s worn to the very marrows of his bone at twenty-one. All he wants is almond milk in his fridge and açaí bowls for brunch.

Beside his box of old toys in his closet, his maid has hung an iron-pressed suit from the cleaners, a deep green necktie. His dad didn’t tell him how much it cost.

Soobin takes a gulping breath of filtered air while he can. His eyes in the reflection of the bathroom mirror are red. His contact lenses itch and he takes two dots of eyedrops on each eye. Blink once, blink twice. He’s not drunk. Okay, maybe a little. His hair and his clothes smell like cigarettes and he washes his hands as if that’ll help.

Aslan has a neon red drink in his hand when Soobin comes back and Soobin realizes that he left his own Marjan in the bathroom.

The living space has emptied out of most people.

“They all went dancing,” Aslan tells him.

Somebody else has toggled the Spotify playlist again. “It’s Ed Sheeran,” Soobin says.

“That’s exactly why.” Aslan laughs. In another world, they might’ve been good friends, but Soobin’s too old and tired to be bothered with timezones.

“Let’s hope he won’t beat Post Malone’s count.”

“You can go dance too if you want.”

“Nah, never the type,” Soobin lies. As if he doesn’t remember well the cool varnish of the dance room’s vinyl flooring, the rhythm of Beomgyu’s heartbeats. “I’m gonna find some old friends to say hi to,” he says. “Tell Yeonjun to call me, but he probably knows already. You’re going somewhere?”

“‘s cool.” Aslan tips his plastic cup up at Soobin, content with being alone with his Marlboro stick. “I’m staying. I’m not sure if you get it, but it kinda feels like Eid.”

Eighteen years of his life in this country, what kind of person doesn’t watch TV commercials? Soobin tries his best to not mangle his pronunciation and says, “Subhanallah,” before he leaves.

Aslan cackles and Soobin thinks he can see it in the puffs of his cigarette.

On his way to the home bar, Soobin bumps into a few second-year alumni. Beomgyu’s year. The girls are red-cheeked, asking him about Beomgyu.

 _Gyu’s late but he’s on a Grab_ , Soobin shouts over Ed Sheeran on bass. He has to repeat himself two times to be heard clearly, the girls pouting when they finally catch what he’s saying. Same old. And Beomgyu’s only prettier than ever.

Then, by the punch bowl, Soobin meets a familiar face. It was a girl who sat beside him in Maths, all the way from first year to third.

“Mila,” Soobin greets her. They haven’t talked ever since graduation but he forgot his graphing calculator once before a test and she took him to the lost and found room and told him to just say _I lost my graphing calculator_.

 _If they asked what type, just say either Canon or Texas Instruments, in navy blue_ , she said. _They all look the same anyway._

Soobin had two graphing calculators after that.

She perks up at her name. “Oh hey, Milky,” she greets back with his old nickname. (If Soobin had Milky from middle school to high school graduation, maybe Stranger Things lasted, too.)

Mila used to have long wavy hair down to her chest. In their third year she had inconspicuous grey highlights on the inside tips.

Now she has a hijab on and she’s pouring vodka into the punch bowl.

“Can I get you a cup?” Soobin asks.

She mixes the punch with the ladle and gives him an amused smile. “I don’t drink anymore.”

“Cool,” he says.

She’s the one who ends up getting a cup for him, pouring him the first helping before the ice has a chance to melt and water the liquor down. “There you go,” she offers.

He receives the cup with a grin, and stays around with her for a few to catch up. Although most of the alumni in their graduating year are finishing college this year, he finds out that both of them aren’t. The difference between them is that he threw away two years of his life for the ROK army while she’s studying to be an oncologist.

Soobin’s older brother said he should be grateful that they already let him use their personal phones and internet during Soobin’s time in the military. Soobin just thinks nobody should be forced to contribute to war.

“Is Daniel done with his?” She asks, since they’re on the topic.

Daniel, huh. Soobin hasn’t heard Yeonjun’s English name in years. After he moved to England, Yeonjun got bored of Daniel and realized Yeonjun was the cooler name and that it wasn’t that hard to pronounce to begin with. His uni friends all call him Yeonjun.

Squinting, Soobin gestures vaguely at the crowd on the dance floor. “Yeah, he’s here dancing with his ex.”

“Cute. Uni friend?”

“Yup.”

“Awan’s here.”

Shit. Soobin splutters, almost spitting his drink out. He looks at her staring at him and winces. “Sorry, that was so lame.”

“Nothing’s changed, then.” She chuckles. “Should you tell him?”

Soobin already has his phone out. “Yeah.”

“Is that okay?”

He licks his teeth, typing a Ka-talk message to Yeonjun. To be honest, Soobin’s not sure if Yeonjun would even read it on time. “Whatever he wants to do after that is up to him.”

“Totally,” she nods, agreeing absentmindedly. She sees that his cup is empty and asks him, “Do you want a refill?”

How many cups has he had tonight? “Nah, I’m fine.”

“They have Capri-Sonne upstairs.”

“No way.” He’s not ashamed of being overexcited.

“Yeah, in the reading room near the staircase. There’s a wine cooler, but it’s all Capri-Sonne inside.”

“The orange juice one that sucks or the ones with the polar bear?”

“Polar bear.”

“God bless this Kai kid.”

She smiles. “Catch you later then.”

“Thanks,” he says. “If Daniel comes around, tell him to call me.”

He says _see you around_ to her and maybe this time it’s not just formalities. He still has her contacts on Line, they should meet up before Soobin leaves the country. Maybe with Yeonjun, too.

The staircase to the second floor is behind the piano, under the chandelier. A couple of kids are sitting on the steps with their drinks. How many people are here? Even back then, Soobin never really kept count.

All that matters is that there’s nobody upstairs and Soobin can’t believe he hasn’t gone here sooner. The music is still booming but the peaks are flattened. No longer Ed Sheeran. Soobin thinks this one is The Neighbourhood’s _Daddy Issues_.

They’ve stopped the strobe from flickering, too and now the heady smoke rises up in streaks and slabs in an ever-present green glow.

From the two-storey window across the banister, Soobin sees that they’re setting something up by the pool that’s drawing out the crowds.

He wonders how this house would look like in the daylight.

Beautiful, that’s for sure.

He can imagine the sunlight coming in from that very two-storey window, washing the wood and concrete interior of the house in gentle shadows. Maybe he’d be able to see the garden better, the crawling vines of bougainvillaea and philodendron that he caught a glimpse of years ago. The jasmines, too, and the orchids. Is there a pond somewhere? Under the beats of the sound system, Soobin hears the rush of a stream.

Falling water. A life out of a Frank Lloyd Wright digest.

The reading room is right next to the staircase, no doors: an open-floor layout. Soobin finds the wine cooler at a minibar between the bookshelves. The polar bear ones are there but there are also some pineapple ones that Soobin didn’t think existed before so he grabs one of each.

Ventilation is better upstairs, his eyes don’t hurt as much. But he starts blinking repeatedly and he should change his contacts.

There’d be no point changing his contacts if he went back downstairs, however. They’ll just dry up in no time again. And judging by the fact that Yeonjun would probably reunite with his high school on-and-off and that Beomgyu isn’t even here yet, they won’t be leaving anytime soon.

He calls Beomgyu, just in case. It picks up right away, which only means that Beomgyu has nothing to do.

“Where are you?” Soobin asks. He lingers around the reading room, checking out the decorative furniture and family pictures like he’s in some kind of museum.

There’s a wall specifically for framed Nat Geo pictures. Landscapes. Mountains and lavas and the like. Kai’s father did freelance photography for Nat Geo as a hobby, so that rumour wasn’t a rumour after all.

Kai and his family were, well, odd. It was as if he was from another world, a separate dimension from the worn-out bourgeois solar system of Soobin’s high school. In a way, Soobin is glad he didn’t know Kai.

“ _Uhh_ ,” comes Beomgyu’s answer. Soobin hears him ask the Grab driver where they are. “ _We’re close to the toll gate_.”

“Going in or getting out?”

“ _Going in._ ”

Soobin doesn’t even sigh anymore. “How long do you think you’ll take?”

Beomgyu asks the driver again, and Soobin catches _40_ before Beomgyu translates it to him honestly, “ _40 minutes, ish._ ”

40 minutes is good. Soobin can work with 40. “Okay, cool.”

The soundwaves of Beomgyu’s chuckle through the wire are round and subdued. Soobin pictures an old image in his head, Beomgyu’s head leaned against a car window, the city lights cruising over him in red and green.

Beomgyu’s nickname in high school was _K-pop idol_. He hated it with his guts, but Soobin guesses he’s reclaimed it now, his hair dyed an ash brown and his lips glossed.

Only prettier than ever.

Beomgyu says, “ _You sound like you don’t want me around_.”

“It’s not that. I just want to take off my contacts and nap.”

“ _Where exactly will you nap?_ ”

Soobin is knocking and opening doors as Beomgyu asks that. The first door is a bathroom, the second door is locked, but what’s constant is that nobody’s answered Soobin’s knocking so far so he’ll keep on trying. “Second floor. Nobody’s here. I’ll probably be in one of the guest rooms. Call me when you arrive?”

“ _Sure_.”

“Oh, but. Call Jjunie-hyung first maybe.”

“ _Huh? What’s up with him?_ ”

Soobin switches his phone to his other hand. It’s hard to do this while carrying two packs of Capri-Sonne. “Awan’s here.”

“ _Oh_.”

“If he doesn’t pick up, come save me first, won’t you?” The third door Soobin knocks doesn’t answer either. But it opens, thankfully, and it’s an empty bedroom.

“ _You found a guest room?_ ”

Soobin messes with the controls by the door. He clicks one that switches on the drop ceiling light. It lights up the lines and edges of the room, not too harsh on his eyes but enough to see he won’t be tripping over anything.

There aren’t many belongings inside. Guest room it is, then. “Yeah,” Soobin confirms.

“ _Sleep well, then, hyung_.”

Nine years. That one-syllable melts and coats Soobin’s veins unfailingly. “Wake me up later, Gyu-yah?”

“ _Mhm._ ”

Soobin steps inside and closes the door behind him as he hangs up the call.

And after that it’s like a deep plunge into a night pool.

The acoustics of the room absorbs the sounds from the outside. _Daddy Issues_ mutes, going from a hum to nothing but a feeble vibration on the wood.

Soobin walks further in and places his two packs of Capri-Sonne on the nightstand. One of them brushes a framed photo, he picks it up and sees three little kids in it.

He doesn’t know why he wants to take a look at it. He’s drunk, maybe. This is definitely a breach of privacy.

It’s a cute picture, regardless. Three kids at the beach building a sandcastle. Their hands are wet and grimy from seawater and sand. The eldest one is a girl, the middle child a boy in primary school age, Soobin supposes, and the youngest girl kindergarten age.

He’s not familiar with how big kids are at certain ages. There’s a ten-year age gap between Soobin and his own sister, a six-year between him and his brother, and as far as he can remember, they’ve always been adults.

This kind of family is novel for him. There’s a cheeky wide smile on the boy’s face, his eyes crinkled into slits. Timing’s not so kind on the smallest girl, and she’s in the middle of a sneeze, but it’s so adorable it makes him chuckle.

Out of nowhere, he’s not sleepy anymore. He’s sobering up.

He puts the picture down and grabs the polar bear Capri-Sonne, punching the straw into it and slurping half of it in one go. His eyebrows furrow, he’s winking again.

Right, contacts.

Across the room there’s an en suite. He makes a beeline for it, clicks the switch on, and shuts the door. He meets his reflection in the mirror and fuck, he’s one minute away from an appointment with the ophthalmologist.

This will be quick. He finishes the Capri-Sonne in one go and chucks it in the bin before washing his hands. The traces of alcohol in his system makes him take a few seconds more than usual to get rid of his contacts, and those go in the bin, too.

Without them, his sight clouds a bit. He thinks he needs a new prescription, or maybe all the gaming and Netflix-binging post-military have taken a toll on him.

40 minutes until Beomgyu arrives. He’s got time to kill.

He takes a piss and washes his hands again. It’s cool in the bathroom, a nice change from how sweaty the living room downstairs made him.

This one has another state-of-the-art interior, granite and glass everything. He sits down on the sink counter and smokes the juul he had in his pocket.

Everybody’s still so traditional here. Aslan only had Marlboro’s and Yeonjun’s ex only had Camels. What’s wrong with a juul? They smell better.

Gosh, he feels like an overgrown child. He’s doing a lot of reminiscing tonight.

Like third year of high school, sitting on the sink counter shoulder-to-shoulder with Beomgyu in the primary school’s building disabled restroom after hours.

Beomgyu smoked Lucky Strikes, Soobin didn’t bring cigarettes to school but he smoked whatever Beomgyu smoked if offered, taking hits from the same wet stick.

Yeonjun, on the other hand, never smoked. _You’d die first, hyung_ , Beomgyu used to prod. _Second-hand smoking, haven’t you heard?_

The mint juul pod Soobin has on is running out of juice, and he’s about to swap it with the vanilla one when he hears the bedroom door open outside.

Fuck.

Leave, leave, leave, Soobin wills. Of course, that doesn’t happen. The door closes and there’s a rustling of duvet. Whoever got in decided to stay.

Fantastic. He just wanted to rest his eyes for a few minutes, and now he has to put his new contacts on and brace himself for the embarrassment of being caught trespassing personal property.

Please don’t be a couple. That’d be more awkward than this is already going to be.

He climbs off the counter and puts on the spare contacts he carries with him. Then, holding back a suffering sigh, he pushes the bathroom door open.

And to make things worse, a speaker he didn’t notice in the room comes along with the click of the door, playing a distractingly familiar song. Way to announce his entrance.

The person sitting on the bed snaps his head at him.

It’s Kai.

“Shit, Stranger Things,” Soobin blurts out dumbly.

Kai startles. His eyes go as wide as saucers, Soobin is royally fucked. This looks like nothing but breaking and entering, which it probably is, house party be damned.

Kai didn’t turn on any extra lights, but now that Soobin gives more fucks about his surroundings, he can see that it’s not entirely unlived in the way guest rooms are. Sure, it’s to an extent empty, but the kid is in college now, he probably doesn’t sleep here anymore.

There’s some cluttered stationery on the desk, a windbreaker slung over the chaise lounge. There’s even a fucking _rabbit plushie_ on the bed.

What kind of guest room extends their hospitality in the form of a plushie?

And Kai he’s—he’s got a joint. It’s lit.

This kid was about to take a hit.

The music plays on as if to fill in the gauche standstill between them. Soobin recognizes it: Lorde. What’s this one again, something from Pure Heroine?

“Hiya,” Kai says to Soobin, then promptly winces.

God, they’re both dumb. This is going to be more awkward than Soobin expected.

Soobin takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I thought this was a guest room but—” he gestures vaguely at where they are. “Apparently not, huh.”

Kai points at him with his joint. Then, to make things even trippier, he asks Soobin in Korean, “Choi-sunbaenim, right?”

Was that Korean? Wait. Why the fuck can this kid speak Korean? Soobin is not that drunk but he’s not very sure anymore. He wants to say _yeah_ or _yes_ but it ends up being “ _Ye_ ,” which is, technically, still _yes_ in Korean but too formal to use to somebody two years his junior. “ _Ne_ ,” Soobin fixes.

“Choi Soobin-sunbaenim, wasn’t it?”

Full name? “Yeah,” Soobin says. He scratches his neck. They’ve switched entirely to Korean. “Thanks for remembering, I’m sorry I don’t remember your—Kai? Please tell me I’m correct.”

“Yeah!” The kid says a bit too cheerfully. He takes a hit of his joint and it’s so weird because he looks like _a kid_ even though Soobin knows he’s probably in college and Soobin himself already started smoking in high school.

“Sorry, and you remember my full name and all.”

“It’s kind of difficult not to remember you,” Kai says, then he elaborates, “I mean after that gym class.”

“Holy fuck.” Soobin curses too much in front of this kid. He doesn’t curse this much typically. This is a bad impression. “You were there, weren’t you? You were in the class we shared the gym hall with.”

Kai’s nodding. He’s got big eyes, like a puppy’s. That’s why the joint doesn’t match him, but who’s Soobin to judge.

Third year gym class. Which semester was it? Yeonjun was dating Awan, then. Maybe she was his first love. Soobin doesn’t really know what makes a first love, he’s never been with someone he ‘loves’, per se, but she made Yeonjun really happy, that’s what he knows.

They got three Korean kids in Soobin’s gym class. Soobin, Yeonjun, and this tall boy named Kisoo. They shared the gym hall with a younger year—Kai’s class—and they had a couple of Korean underclassmen from there, as well.

During that one particular gym class, Kisoo was talking to the Korean underclassmen and they were snickering about something. Joking the way high school kids joked, crude and admittedly, a step too far.

Kisoo took too many steps too far that day. And he just had to say it in Korean, in front of Awan’s face, who couldn’t speak Korean.

 _I don’t have a girlfriend but at least I’m not Yeonjun who’s dating his maid_ —

If Soobin closes his eyes sometimes, he thinks he can still recall the sound of Kisoo’s head hitting the gym floor.

The coach’s shrill whistle. _Daniel, stop!_

Soobin didn’t stop him. He stood there and watched Yeonjun stain his fist with blood and thought _good job_.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says to Kai.

Kai takes another drag, lest the joint burns out. He can do that a hundred more times and Soobin will still not be able to get used to it. The boy sits with his legs closed like it’s Sunday school, for god’s sake.

“I thought he was going to kill him,” Kai says with those puppy eyes.

“It wasn’t _that_ bad,” Soobin downplays, but the phrase itself tastes sour. “Okay, okay, it was bad.”

“If Kisoo-sunbaenim really said that about Awan-sunbaenim, he deserved it.”

“Damn right he did.” Choi Soobin, please stop cursing in front of the baby. “How much did people talk about that day? You know all of us by name.”

“I have a good memory.”

“Makes sense. Awan’s a hard name to forget.”

A puff of smoke wafts from Kai’s lips. Soobin doesn’t do weed, Yeonjun does. Beomgyu does everything. So second-hand smoking—maybe Yeonjun’s not the only one.

“It’s a nice name,” Kai says.

And Soobin says, unmeaningly, “Kai’s a nice name, too.”

He gets a whiplash the second he registers what he just said. What the _fuck_ is he doing? Soobin physically restrains himself from palming his face.

Kai smiles. “Is that why you remember it?”

Soobin thinks that he remembers Kai more than he should, more than he could. “I—should get going. I don’t want to bother you.”

The smile in Kai’s face falls, replaced by a pout. “What? No, you aren’t. You can stay, if you want?”

Does he want to stay? To be frank, for the sake of his eyes, yes. But is it appropriate? “This is your bedroom, I don’t want to bother you, it’s okay.”

“No, no! Stay. I wanna know more about that gym class.”

“I thought everybody talked about it two years down the line?”

“Some of them were rumours. I want to debunk them.” Kai pats at the space next to him on the bed, and Soobin doesn’t think Kai has the slightest idea of what he’s doing, but Soobin doesn’t have any idea either and he got around 30 minutes to spare.

Rich kids with nice parents get everything they want. Not to say Soobin isn’t one of those rich kids, but Kai really knows how to get what he wants.

“It’s not that interesting.” Soobin’s being modest again, sitting a respectable distance from Kai on the bed.

“It’s one of our school legends, you know?”

He snorts. School legends. Yeonjun would’ve loved to hear that. Soobin mulls over where to start, but then he looks down at the floor and sees that Kai is barefoot while he has his boots on.

“Shit, sorry, sorry,” Soobin curses again, tugging his shoelaces loose. Why did he opt for his Docs and not just stick to good ol’ fashioned converse sneakers like Yeonjun?

“Oh no, it’s okay!” Kai says, but Soobin knows manners and he’s halfway done with them, anyway.

“It’s your _room_.”

“It’s really okay! I know people go in and out to the pool and taking off your shoes is annoying.”

“I haven’t gone near the pool at all tonight actually, and it’s impolite to not take off my shoes before I get on any bed—” That doesn’t sound right. His right boot is off but the laces on the left one got tied up in a knot. He backtracks, “I mean, I know I’m keeping my feet on the floor but—”

Kai stares at him. Their eyes meet and then Kai breaks into giggles. “It’s okay. You can put your feet up, I’m sure no part of you stinks.”

That’s not what this insinuates, but okay.

Soobin fights with his laces until they’re off, regardless. “You’re so sure about that.”

“They’re Docs and your shirt says Balenciaga.”

Putting on airs is only effective until you’re caught. “I know.” Soobin huffs in defeat. “But it smells like cigarettes now.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Don’t go, then.” Kai grins. He’s got Soobin where he wants him.

Right now more than ever, Soobin is glad he didn’t know this boy. Utter hazard, that’s what Kai is. Soobin sighs and crosses his legs underneath him on the bed before the floor dirties his socked feet.

“Do you want a hit?” The joint still has a ways to go, Kai offers him.

“Uhh, no thanks. I don’t smoke. I don’t like the smell.”

“Oh,” Kai goes. Soobin doesn’t expect him to squish the flame off. Kai balls it inside some tissues before getting up and tossing it in the bin.

“Wait, you don’t need to.” Soobin rushes to stop him, but Kai’s gotten back onto the bed, crawling on his knees to the window the bed is pushed against. He unlatches it open to let the air out. Oh no, now Soobin feels bad about everything. “Aah, it was fine, you didn’t need to do that.”

“It’s cool,” Kai says in his children’s-morning-show voice. _It’s cooh-ol_. “It was bad weed anyway, Dika’s.”

That’s a nostalgic name. Soobin scrunches his face just at the memory of Dika’s rowdy voice. “Homeschooled kid? A year above you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, Theera dealt better. A bit pricey, but Beomgyu always got his stash from her.” She was very particular about it, too. Wrapped it in a mini paper envelope with a ribbon on top like it was dainty jewellery and not, well, dank weed.

“She upgraded her portfolio, you know? She got mollies and coke when I was in second year and now apparently she’s doing lean, too.”

Soobin has never done mollies in his life, much less lean. Kids these days go over and above to rebel. Just skip class, do weed, and go to sleep. Lean is a bit too much, isn’t it?

“Didn’t she go to NUS for uni?” Soobin asks, he remembers Beomgyu telling him that. Theera was in Beomgyu’s year.

“Uh-huh.”

“Whoah.” Dealing _lean_ in Singapore, that’s a bigger achievement than any IB diploma. “That girl is going to places.”

“Hopefully safe ones,” Kai jokes and they’re snickering now, the back and forth between them effortless.

Soobin’s just about to loosen up but then all of a sudden Kai covers his mouth mid-laugh and moves to dig for something behind his cushions, grabbing what looks like a perfume bottle that was once on the window pane.

“What’s that?” Soobin asks.

“Fabric spray.” Kai shakes the bottle in his hand, spraying the room left and right to get rid of the scant weed smell. “Wait let me just—does this work for my mouth?”

 _No_. “Do not do that please do not do that I’m sure doing lean is safer do not do that.”

“What if my breath smells like weed?”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, but if you’re worried I got a Capri-Sonne.” Soobin points to the nightstand.

Kai follows where his finger is pointing and finds the other Capri-Sonne Soobin hasn’t gotten a chance to drink. The room is dim but Soobin swears he can see Kai’s eyes light up. “Oh, it’s pineapple! My favourite!”

“It’s literally _your_ Capri-Sonne that I stole.”

Not minding it a single bit, Kai unwraps the straw and punches it in. “Thanks anyway, hyung.”

Soobin blinks. It’s a word, but out on the pool the people have set up the green mood lights and the wine-bottle flush floods Kai’s room through the window. The light that falls on the side of Kai’s face reminds Soobin of late night car rides and city lights.

Pure Heroine is still playing from the speakers. _400 Lux_. When Beomgyu had just learned how to drive, he played it in his car for weeks, driving Soobin and Yeonjun around his neighbourhood.

 _Soobinie-hyung_.

“What did you call me?”

“Hyung?” Kai repeats. “Is that weird?”

“I just never imagined you’d call me hyung.”

“Why?”

“Just—never expected,” Soobin says and Kai frowns, lips jutted out in a pout, so Soobin tries to amend it, “Hey, don’t pout, I don’t mean it badly.”

“You said that because I don’t look the part, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t say anything about that.”

“But you thought it,” Kai argues between slurps of his Capri-Sonne. “Everybody thinks it. They don’t think I’m Korean enough because I’m half.”

Soobin gets what he’s saying, but at the same time he doesn’t think that’s a bad thing for Kai. People like Kai go on billboards, magazine spreads, it’s written the way it is the moment they’re born.

If Yeonjun dated someone like Kai, Soobin wouldn’t need to wash the blood off Yeonjun’s knuckles that day.

(Some days, remembering it makes Soobin’s own fist itch.)

“You’re white,” Soobin says matter-of-factly. The things that are handed to you are not the same as the things that are handed to us.

And Kai says, “I know,” taking Soobin by surprise. He’s still slurping his Capri-Sonne intermittently. “But I’m still Korean.”

Soobin sticks his tongue on his cheek, biting his lip as it spreads into a grin. “Okay.”

Kai grins back at him. “Okay?”

“I mean. I didn’t even know you were Korean until today.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Call me hyung more and I’ll get used to it faster maybe.” He meant to be cheeky with it, but Kai widens his eyes comically, his lips squished when he blushes.

And oh. It’s Soobin’s turn to overlook the insinuation, is it?

Kai hasn’t finished his Capri-Sonne but he scoots further up the bed, situating himself by the pillows with his legs folded to his chest.

“Something wrong, hyung?” He doesn’t even wait to use it.

Soobin dusts his knees for no reason. “Where were we?”

“You promised to tell me about the gym class.”

“Oh! Yeah.” They’ve gone off on such a tangent. Getting more comfortable, Soobin climbs up the bed, too, leaning his back against the wall by the window. They’re sitting adjacent to each other now and it’s the demure kind of intimacy, just enough for not-quite strangers like themselves.

Soobin retraces his story. “I don’t know what rumours spread after we graduated but there’s all there is to it, really. Kisoo got sent to the hospital. He broke his nose and he needed a few stitches but nothing too bad.”

“We thought Yeonjun-sunbaenim would’ve gotten expelled.”

“Honestly? We thought that he would, too. But they called up his parents and everything, and it turned out our school was too good for expulsion. And he was in his third year anyway, so he got a slap on the wrist and got away with a two-week suspension. Kisoo got suspended, too, for the record. Only for a week, though.”

“I heard they broke up after, Yeonjun-sunbaenim and Awan-sunbaenim.”

The salt to the wound. Soobin sighs. “Not _directly_ after. She got scared of him. Who wouldn’t? I got scared of him, he went berserk just like—” Soobin snaps his fingers.

But really, like he’s always been, he knows he’s doing it again. Not meaning things, half-meaning them.

She was scared, he could tell, but it wasn’t because Yeonjun snapped. It was because the words wouldn’t go away. _At least I’m not Yeonjun who’s dating his maid_.

Yeonjun might not think that way, but Kisoo thought that way and the Korean underclassmen in that gym class thought that way. Who else would think that way? Soobin? The other Korean students? Yeonjun’s parents?

She was scared because she’d look at him and all she could see was what she couldn’t be for him. How her skin was wrong and her nose and her lips and the language that she spoke.

Soobin knew. He waited outside that principal’s office with her. She turned her phone one way and the other between her palms, put it inside her pocket and said to him masked in a weak laugh, _everything would’ve been easier if I looked like your girlfriend would it?_

“Sorry if it’s too personal for me to ask.” Pensive, Kai switches his Capri-Sonne to his other hand, hugging his legs close.

“I don’t even know if it’s personal. Everybody in my year knows about them even now. They’re on and off. They visited each other while he was in his military breaks. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?”

“Fun?”

Soobin thinks it is. It must be. Holding hands, going to the movies together, Valentine’s presents. Yeonjun had all of that.

Soobin only had 400 Lux on repeat. _We’re never done with killing time_.

Well now they’ve killed all of it, and there’s nothing left.

It’s not even 400 Lux playing anymore. This is—shit, _Ribs_.

Soobin rests his arm on the windowpane, his fingers tap-tapping the wood idly. He puts them into humbler words: “I mean, I want to have a love story, too.”

Kai cocks his head curiously. “You don’t have any? I thought you had a girlfriend?”

“Wow, our lives are so publicized.”

Kai squeezes his bag of Capri-Sonne and says something Soobin has never heard before: “The Choi trifecta.”

Soobin gawks. “Who called us that?”

“The Koreans.”

As expected of them. In retrospect, the whole gig was ridiculous. No sane Korean student would talk to Yeonjun or Soobin anymore after that unless absolutely necessary. Only Beomgyu stuck with them, but Beomgyu’s stuck with them since middle school and Beomgyu is not, in any sense of the word, sane.

“Sheesh, I hated them.” Soobin wipes his face. “I broke up, too, because of that, actually.”

Kai nibbles his straw. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, it’s okay! Good riddance, to be honest. Since we stopped hanging out with the Korean kids we got to know cooler crowds and we had a lot of fun. It’s stupid anyway to just hang out with the other Koreans.”

To be fair, Yeonjun had always flitted here and there, Soobin was the one who held on to the status quo quivering in fear. One could say he was living vicariously through Yeonjun’s punch. It reshaped Soobin’s entire secondary school social life and changed him for the better.

But they were two while Beomgyu was one. Soobin’s teeth grind his tongue. “Beomgyu was—he was the only ‘exiled’ Korean in his year, wasn’t he?”

“There was Taehyun,” Kai says. “Well, he was in my year but he didn’t want to join the Korean clique, so the other Koreans he could talk to were only Beomgyu-sunbaenim and me.”

“Taehyun,” Soobin tests the name. He’s heard of it before, Beomgyu must’ve mentioned it in passing. “Is he here right now?”

“He’s in the military.”

“Ooh. Fun times.”

Kai giggles at his sarcasm. “Not good?”

Soobin’s legs are too long for the breadth of the bed, but he’ll cramp himself otherwise so he lets his feet hang off the edge. “I wish I could say that my efforts paid off. You know how people say—” he stops, then asks, “who’s Korean, your mom or your dad?”

“My mom.”

“So I bet your mom says that going to the military is a rite of passage that changes you, that makes boys men, and so on. My mom went on and _on_ about it. Well, the truth of the matter is, it doesn’t do shit. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was just a waste of time. Being told how to twirl and shoot a K2 doesn’t make you a _man_. Not even a functioning adult. Look at me. Do I look like a functioning adult?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Soobin laughs. “No and your answer should be no because no I am not. Even back then when the conscription was ‘real’ and ‘longer’ and ‘no phones allowed’ whatever, my uncle can’t even chop an onion, you know that? My aunt takes care of everything. The military just gives you a macho excuse to sound like you’re more capable than women even when you’re not, not in the slightest. All you did was waste two fucking years of your life so you could date younger girls who are now in the same stage of life as you are. That’s why all of us go nuts for _oppa_. Makes no fucking sense.”

“You sure loved it.”

Soobin has to tone down on the cursing. “Sorry, I’m—okay, okay, I do, I hated it, who didn’t—but I don’t usually rant like this, I swear. I’m just kind of tipsy.”

“You’re no fun sober, then?”

“ _Yah_!” Soobin scolds, but he’s still laughing and Kai, too. He’s not scary when he’s angry, Beomgyu bugs him about that constantly, poking his dimples.

Kai’s shoulders shake when he giggles, his eyes turning to crescents. He’s got wavy hair that’s left to grow past his nape, and the curls look fluffy enough that Soobin wants to try running his fingers through it. But that’s just the green light on their skin and the red liquor in Soobin’s veins talking.

“Do you have to go to the military?” Soobin asks him.

Kai shakes his head. “No. My passport’s not Korean.”

“Good. Don’t waste your time.”

“Is Beomgyu-hyung in the military?”

“Not yet. He’s a med student, he’ll enlist after he graduates.” The mention of Beomgyu’s name has Soobin checking his phone. It’s almost ten, he didn’t keep track of how many minutes he got left. “He’s coming, actually,” is all Soobin manages. “On his way, he said.”

Kai’s Capri-Sonne is all out. He places it on the windowpane and he looks like he’s about to continue the string of their conversation, but the commotion building up out on the pool interrupts them.

“It’s Dika.” Kai perks up.

Soobin follows him, peering out to watch a curly-haired boy hype something up. “I think he’s high.”

For a quick moment there, Soobin assumes Kai should be worried, it being his house and all, but a song plays from the pool and Kai turns off Pure Heroine to listen to it more clearly. “Hey, it’s Joji,” Kai says, recognizing it.

It is. Lofty beats, a song from a few years back. Soobin recognizes it, too. “Oh, cute. Does he think this is senior prom?”

Kai starts singing softly to the first lines, just to humour him, though it’s more like saying the lyrics out loud. “ _I don’t want a friend_.”

“ _I want my life in two,_ ” Soobin follows.

The water down in the pool forms dormant ripples. The music swims into Kai’s room as they watch the bathing suits colour the dark water in buoyant speckles, in greens and pinks.

Soobin thinks he can almost feel the water around him, he’s waist-deep in it, but at the same time he feels so detached. Like he’s up higher than two storeys, floating on a moon of his own with this boy he knows but has never known, watching the world below them orbit on by.

Dika is singing along to the song and his off-pitch tune is ruining it, perhaps on purpose. Soobin and Kai share a laugh, and then a sympathetic sigh when Dika points his mic at the crowd gathered on the pool. That particular part climbs up, and Soobin and Kai shout along: _In the da―ark!_

The line echoes. Without waiting for the song to finish, Kai shuts his window again.

“That’s enough of that,” he chirps. Soobin can’t help his amused grin and Kai smiles sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I don’t really like Dika.”

“Yeah, he gets on people’s nerves.” Soobin agrees. “It’s okay, you’re allowed to not like some people.”

“Am I allowed to like some of them, too?”

Soobin clams up.

The turn of phrase threw him for a loop. Kai is on his knees by the window, and he looks through Soobin’s eyes with an air that Soobin can’t understand.

The closed window has snuffed the music outside to a contained thrum. More than ever, Soobin wishes Kai would play Pure Heroine again, so that they won’t be in this slow, deliberate dance.

In this position, Soobin guesses it’s courtesy. He’s in Kai’s house on Kai’s bed.

He tells Kai, “I’m not straight.”

It’s supposed to be a warning, but Kai doesn’t stir. Their eyes stay locked as Kai pronounces every syllable soundly, “That’s good. Straight people are no fun.”

Soobin snorts. “Yeah, true.”

Having said that, Kai shifts to lie fully down on his mattress, stretching out his arms. He’s a tall, lanky kid, too, and his feet bump against Soobin’s lap. Kai pats the space next to him on the bed. Wherever this night will go it will go where it will.

Soobin joins him. They’re almost as tall as each other. Soobin has the faintest idea that he might still be taller than Kai, but that’s solely because the Kai he’s known until this very night was the timid, round-faced fifteen-year-old he shared a gym hall with.

On this bed lying next to him, Soobin studies the angles and curves of Kai’s profile. He’s changed and it’s only natural. He must be twenty now, Soobin is turning twenty-two himself. High school was four years ago.

Is it a good idea to measure them shoulder to shoulder? Catalogue all their differences to fill in the blank spots of Soobin’s memory?

Kai’s jaw has gotten sharper, and so have his cheekbones, the shape of his eyebrows and the lines of his eyelids more prominent. But Soobin doesn’t really know, he didn’t really know Kai back then.

He knew a name and he knew a house. And he thinks he knew the brush of their uniform sleeves on the hallways.

What an odd kid. I wish I had known you.

“I’m glad I didn’t know you,” Soobin says.

Kai is staring at the ceiling, there’s a tremor in his chest when he laughs. “That’s awful,” he says, then he turns his head to meet Soobin’s eyes and that’s unfair. “Why would you say that?”

Soobin shrugs. “The girls used to talk about you.”

“Third year girls?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wow.”

Soobin rolls his eyes and that makes Kai laugh again. “They said you were cute,” Soobin clues him in.

“They said that about all the half-white kids.”

“That’s true, but they said they liked your eyes best.” Kai purses his lips at that, and Soobin should explain. “ _The Kai kid with the house, his eyes are so pre-tty_ ,” Soobin mimics in English, rattling his fist.

“My eyes are brown, hyung.” Kai laughs, playing along with his act.

“They’re a good brown. Haven’t you seen them?”

“I’m colour blind.”

“What?”

Kai doesn’t look like he’s joking. “It’s not entirely black and white. It’s just, brown and red and green all kinda look the same.”

“That’s rough.” Under this light Kai’s eyes are tinted with green, a marble-ball brown. “Your eyelashes are brown, too.”

Kai widens his eyes, his pupils dilating. “Oh?”

“If the girls saw you up close I bet they’d go even crazier over you.”

“The girls in my year thought you were cute, too,” Kai says in return and it’s Soobin’s turn to flinch. “When you broke up, all the Korean girls were bummed. They thought you wouldn’t date a Korean girl anymore because of the whole Choi Trifecta thing.”

“That’s dumb. They were the ones who avoided us like the plague in the first place. We didn’t abandon them, we just, y’know, expanded our horizons, okay?”

“You did break up with your girlfriend because of it, though.”

Soobin rolls his tongue in his mouth. People make it seem like a breakup needs some grand, overarching reason, when it’s really simple. “I broke up with her because I didn’t like her. Yeonjun punching Kisoo just helped that pan out.”

“Did you like her before?”

Now that’s a tough question. Yet Soobin answers it easily: “No.”

Kai curls himself closer to him. “Did you like someone else?”

“I think I still do.”

“Yeonjunie-hyung?”

“Beomgyu,” Soobin confesses, and it’s—new. He’s said Beomgyu’s name thousands of times before but never like this. Never out loud to someone like this. Because this Beomgyu is not the Choi Beomgyu he wants everyone to know, this one is the Choi Beomgyu that he’s kept inside his ribcage for years and years, and maybe 400 Lux has never stopped playing.

And Soobin starts to laugh again for some reason. His chest feels funny, unzipped at the sternum where green-brown marble balls are spilling out of his windpipe and he can breathe now. He wants to say it. On the backseat of a car at night where the green track lights slide across Beomgyu’s cheek.

I’ve liked you since you were twelve, do you know that? When you couldn’t speak Korean without an accent because you’ve only been using it with your family, when you had that ugly bowl cut and your fingertips are calloused from having just learnt how to play the guitar. I liked you down to every lilt in your intonations.

“Oh gosh, I’ve liked him for nine years,” Soobin says, as if it’s an epiphany and not a long toiling fact. “I was—I was thirteen, I thought I’d get over it, but. He just kept, every year he just kept getting prettier so how was I supposed to—”

Kai watches him warily with those brown eyes and Soobin laughs even more.

“Let me tell you one thing.” Soobin turns to lie flat on his back, drawing imaginary points on the ceiling. “In middle school I had a test after lunch and I forgot to bring an eraser, so Beomgyu lent me his, all right? He asked for it back after but I lied and told him I lost it. Having crushes is so stupid, I still have that eraser, you know? It’s in this small box in this bigger box where all my old toys and stuffed animals are. It’s been nine years, why did I even keep it?”

“Because you wanted what was his to be yours?” Kai translates.

“Yeah.” Soobin knows it is. A part of Beomgyu that’s his. “Yeah, it’s that.”

Kai pinches Soobin’s sleeve loosely. “Did he know?”

The points in the ceiling connect to form a constellation he can’t possibly name. Soobin takes Kai’s hand that’s holding onto his sleeve and places it on his own stomach, interlacing their fingers together.

“You know how it felt like,” he says to Kai.

Kai has to know if he pronounced his syllables soundly. Kids like them grow up in a different way.

Growing up for them was sitting on the side and watching everybody dance around them, oblivious and free. Growing up was looking at yourself in the mirror every morning and every night and being scared shitless. Of what your teachers say, what your parents say, what the news and the tv programmes say. You look at the person you love and all you see is the looming, lethargic tide of fear that’s slowly washing over you, eating you whole. So you shut up. You close the door, you go to sleep.

Growing up was missing out on being young.

Kai nods. Just outside the window, down on the pool, it is teeming with life. The dancing boys and girls with their wet shoulders and wet knees. This metaphor is getting too real for both of them.

“Nine years,” Kai marvels.

“Should I do it for one more year and make it a round number?”

The light joke has Kai smiling. Making Kai smile comes naturally to him, but just this once, Kai smiles without showing his teeth.

“I don’t know,” Kai says. “I just don’t like numbers in general.”

“Me too,” Soobin says as he counts Kai’s eyelashes. Never meaning what he means until he does. “Can I kiss you?”

“Do you mean that?”

Until he does. “Yeah.”

“Then okay.”

Soobin smiles the same smile. “Okay, okay,” he chants. His hand moves first, cupping the side of Kai’s face, his thumb tracing his cheekbone.

Kai’s mouth is parted when they kiss. Soobin’s lips slide between his smoothly, too careful too chaste for supposedly strangers. Soobin closes their lips together but Kai holds onto Soobin’s wrist and pulls back.

“I don’t taste like weed, do I?” He asks, genuinely worried.

“Weed doesn’t taste bad, you taste like pineapples.”

“Really?”

“Really, really.” Soobin gives him a quick peck. “What do I taste like?”

“Hmm…” For good measure, Kai kisses him one more time, a small tongue tentatively licking the seam of Soobin’s lips before it goes away again. He smacks his lips together and says, “Marjan?”

“Oh, you’re good!”

“Did somebody spike the Muslim equivalent of church wine?”

“It’s a cultural thing not a religious thing.” Or so Soobin believes.

“Maybe some parts of religion are cultural.”

“Awh, you’re smart, too? Stop it, you’re cute already.”

Kai pouts, which only furthers Soobin’s point. “You’re cute, too, hyung.”

“Who said that, the Korean girls with regrets?”

“I say that. I thought you were so handsome, I’m not kidding.” Kai sits up to make a point. A lock of hair curtains over his face and he sweeps it away. “Remember Chinese New Year’s?”

This angle isn’t a comfortable one to hold a conversation in. Soobin sits up too, reclining half on the pillows on the bed and half on the cushions on the windowpane. “The celebration at school?”

“Mhm. Everybody wore traditional Chinese clothes or anything red. You wore a modern hanbok because it was Seollal, too.”

“Ah, right! That was fun.” He wore a thin cotton jeogori and his uniform pants, Beomgyu had one that was similar while Yeonjun wore ones that were actually a pyjama set, but none was the wiser, anyway.

They had a blast that day, parading their fit in front of the Koreans who ostracized them.

“You forgot your gym clothes didn’t you?” Kai reminds him.

“Did I?”

“You did. You went to gym class with the hanbok on. And I—” Soobin curls his hand around Kai’s elbow, inviting him to come close. Kai’s already halfway on his lap, Soobin settles them so that Kai’s straddling him properly.

He likes this angle, having to look up to meet Kai’s eyes. The shadows on Kai’s face are gentler this way. “And you?” Soobin urges him to continue.

“I kept—I couldn’t stop stealing glances at you. I thought you were the cutest boy at school.”

Soobin giggles. Choi Soobin, the cutest boy at school. From _gym_ class. Yeonjun and Beomgyu would be on the floor cackling. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard tonight.”

“I meant it!”

“Aww,” Soobin coos. “Hush, hush.”

That lock of hair is stubborn, Soobin brushes it back for Kai before he tips his head up to kiss him once more, fingers carding through the texture of his brown curls. Soobin doesn’t remember the last time he kisses someone like this, like they have all the time in the world.

Kai is wonderfully pliant. He stays put when Soobin trails his kisses down his jaw, and then his neck, his collarbone.

“Soobinie-hyung,” Kai calls him. His voice is delicate. It’s a weird feeling. Reminds Soobin that he exists, that Kai knows him. That they’re in this moment at the same time all at once and together and wow that is something. “Soobinie-hyung,” Kai calls him again.

“Yeah?”

“Open your mouth.”

He doesn’t know what Kai’s up to, but where this will go, it will go, won’t it?

Soobin wraps his arms loosely around Kai’s waist and opens his mouth just slightly. Kai holds him by his nape and leans in, tracing Soobin’s open mouth with his.

It’s ticklish at first and Soobin squirms. Sulking, Kai cradles Soobin’s face with his other hand. “Stay still.”

He listens. Soobin feels Kai’s tongue first on his bottom lip, before it slips inside and meets his own, and it becomes so difficult to stay still. Kai kisses languidly, everything so calculated.

Twenty, no longer fifteen.

It just dawns in Soobin then, what the fuck is he doing. In this house in this room with this boy who wasn’t even a fraction of his past. What is this? Kai’s got brown eyes and brown eyelashes and what the fuck does Soobin think he’s doing?

He doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want the hint of bitterness to thicken and seep into his skin, clawing him from the inside out.

Soobin holds Kai’s head in his hands, he’s older, he’ll lead this.

Kai’s jaw is sharp enough that it juts against the inside of Soobin’s palm. And Soobin wants that to be everything he feels, along with the tang of pineapples on the flat of Kai’s tongue, the back of his teeth and his frustratingly thin lips.

They’ve kissed so closely that Kai’s nose bumps against Soobin’s and Kai laughs. It makes Soobin laugh, too, thaws the bitter feeling a little better.

“What half are you again?” Soobin asks.

“Half Korean.”

“Come on, you know what I mean.”

“I was born in Hawaii,” Kai says, the way people who’ve lived their whole lives not knowing how to answer that question say.

“Tell me your last name. It’s no fair that you know mine but I don’t know yours.”

“Huening.” _Hyu-ning_. “German. Kai is a German name, too, you know.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, it’s pretty common!” Kai insists. “Well, I don’t know how common, but the ‘not rare’ level?”

“Soobin’s the ‘not rare’ level, too, I can tell you that.”

Kai entertains him. “Oh, my one-in-a-million Choi Soobin-hyungnim.”

“You’re a joker, aren’t you? C’mere—”

"Wait, no, _no_ —"

Soobin shoves him down playfully. The sheets and the pillows smell like fabric softener and flowers that are white. Magnolia or something. Or perhaps that’s the fabric perfume Kai sprayed before, who knows. It smells like white.

With Kai underneath him, the angle is lovely, too, but Kai is beautiful and that’s not news. The bridge of his nose is a sculpted line, the lips that have been on Soobin’s a red curve.

There’s that lock of hair again. Soobin tucks it behind Kai’s ear.

Brown. His eyes are brown, his eyelashes.

Soobin thinks of that day, Chinese New Year’s. The gym walls were beige and their gym uniforms red, all the hues melted into sepia in Kai’s sight. The modern hanbok Soobin was wearing was three shades of blue, and he wonders if Kai saw him as a splash of colour. Like an old picture, like Soobin is a vivid part of his past.

Soobin remembers him, too. Just like Kai remembers him. In moments. In colours.

The closest they have gravitated towards each other was on that hallway where their sleeves brushed. Soobin turned his head and caught the glint of the sunlight in Kai’s eyes.

Soobin didn’t even know him but he remembers him in all the colours. And maybe the city lights that cruised on by could’ve been Kai, too.

Should I have known you?

“Wait.” Kai stops him when Soobin leans down to kiss him once more. “I want to put Lorde back on.”

“Can we kiss without interrupting ourselves for once?” Soobin lets Kai stretch out under him to paw for his phone somewhere underneath the pillows.

“You’re one to say,” Kai says, slightly out of breath when he’s found it.

“Okay. Sorry, then, doryeon-nim.”

The speaker comes back to life and a song picks up mid-track. Soobin can’t tell which song it is, he’s much more interested in placing his mouth on Kai’s jaw.

Soobin blows on Kai’s ear and he fidgets, holding onto Soobin’s arms for balance. He’s sensitive there. “D-doryeon-nim?”

“That’s you.”

Kai pouts. What a surprise, the doryeon-nim doesn’t want to be called doryeon-nim. “Call me something else.”

“Hm, what suits you better? Aegi? Want me to call you that?”

That has an effect. Kai tenses instantly. “Let’s—”

Soobin can see him blush even in this light, aegi might not be good for both of them at the moment. “Okay. Just Kai, then?” He compromises. Kai nods and Soobin buries his nose in the crook of Kai’s neck. “Kai,” he tests it out there.

Kai whines. “That’s not any better.”

“That’s your _name_.”

“In my defence, I’ve only heard you call me that tonight.”

“I’ll make up for lost times, then, okay?” Soobin pushes himself back up on his elbows. He’s nervous, too, now, so he brushes his lips on Kai’s cheek to cull himself. “Kai,” he tries once more. Kai twitches, crunching Soobin’s sleeves in his fists, and Soobin wants to say it again and again, _Kai_ as he kisses Kai’s ear, his eyelid, _Kai_.

“Wait, wait let me—” Kai tilts his head aside. “This isn’t the song I want.”

“Seriously?” Soobin is torn between sighing and laughing.

“It gets me nostalgic! I always wanted to make out to Pure Heroine. It was my high school anthem.”

“Your high school anthem? Weren’t you like a primary schooler when this album came out?”

“ _When_ it was released doesn’t matter, hyung. Wait, _wait_ —” He holds Soobin back with a hand over Soobin’s mouth, tapping the skip button on his Spotify player. “It’s not _Swinging Party_ yet—”

After another couple of taps, the correct beat comes on and he lets Soobin go. Soobin takes a deep breath. “Is it that now?”

“Yeah.”

Like most of the tracks in the album, the tempo of this song ascends in a deep-seated, swirling siren. Kai finds his way back to Soobin’s lips, his fingers in Soobin’s hair. He has a red mouth and a pink tongue and beautiful eyes and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. So much that’s it’s sweet, that it drowns out the bitter feeling of what the fuck is Soobin thinking, where the fuck does he think this will go.

He doesn’t want another notch on his bedpost. He wants almond milk in his fridge, açaí bowls for brunch. He wants a body to wake up beside in the daylight. But Kai is just so beautiful that he doesn’t—he doesn’t mind.

“Your phone’s ringing,” Kai says, before Soobin even notices the default chime of an incoming Ka-talk voice message.

“Mmrh.” Soobin purrs. His phone is on the windowpane vibrating. He has to get up to get it and that’s too much work right now.

How is Kai this soft? He’s a twenty-year-old, 180-something cm of bone, but his skin is so soft, his hair, too, his lips most of all.

Kai lets Soobin kiss him two more times before he starts whining again. “Pick it up, hyung. I can’t hear Lorde clearly.”

“Okay, okay.” Soobin gives up. He rubs his eyes and sits up, grabbing his phone from the windowpane.

“Who is it?”

“Beomgyu,” Soobin reads the screen aloud, then he swipes the call off and tosses his phone back onto the windowpane.

“Hyung!” Kai shrieks.

Well, it’s not ringing anymore, right? Soobin settles back on top of him. “Just a bit more.” Soobin can whine, too. He kisses Kai leisurely and Kai’s thumb dips into his dimple.

This feels like how he’s supposed to kiss someone in high school, careful yet eager, even if he didn’t kiss like this back in high school. But then again, he never kissed somebody he wanted to kiss in high school.

 _Swinging Party_ tunes out. That was the last track in the album.

This is it, the conclusion. In the near-quiet, Soobin hears Kai’s heartbeat or his own in his stomach, all the way to his ankles. They’re playing slow dance down on the pool again, he can’t tell what. Maybe it’s Harry Styles. It trickles on their skin like a hush, like Kai’s voice.

“He’s outside,” Kai says.

Soobin hums. They hear faint footsteps out on the hallway. “He is.”

The footsteps go farther away instead of closer. “He’s going the other direction.”

“He’s dumb like that.”

Kai snickers. Soobin’s phone is vibrating again, and Soobin rubs his cheek on the pillow. When he lifts his face to meet Kai’s, Kai looks watery, like Soobin is watching him through the bottom of a pool.

Last one for the night. He wraps his arms around Kai and holds him close. “Thank you,” Soobin says, burying his nose once more in the scent of flowers that are white.

“You too, hyung.”

Soobin takes his phone from the windowpane and leaves the bed. He picks up the call this time as he paces.

“ _Just woke up, sleepyhead?_ ” Beomgyu’s voice greets him.

Soobin clears his throat. “Everything okay with Jjunie-hyung?”

“ _Why do you think I’m asking you to hang out with me? I found a wine cooler full of Capri-Sonne. You want a polar bear one?_ ”

“I want the pineapple one, please.”

Beomgyu tells Soobin to not keep him waiting and the call ends. Soobin stops pacing to turn to Kai. He’s sat up on the bed now, watching Soobin with his chin propped on his palm.

And Soobin thinks he wants to—he doesn’t want to back out of what he really means anymore—to see Kai in the daylight. To see his eyelashes on white linen.

“Beomgyu’s stealing more of your Capri-Sonne.”

“Go wild,” Kai says. His hair is a mess, most likely Soobin’s fault. Kai grins dazedly, it’s like he just woke up from a fulfilling sleep. Maybe Soobin did get that nap, after all.

Kai walks him to the door and places his hands on Soobin’s shoulders, tilting his face upwards just a bit to give Soobin what he wants to be one last kiss. Their forehead knocks, and he squeezes Soobin’s shoulder in apology, another kiss.

Soobin is still a little taller than Kai.

“Is your college overseas?” Soobin asks.

“Mhm.”

There’s no point asking. Soobin walks out the door and says, “Well, see you around then.”

**LINE**

August 8, 2022

**Kai Hüning**

**Kai Hüning [10:23]:**

soobinie-hyung!

i got your line from mila-sunbaenim! you left a usb in my bathroom

line me if you want it back!!

**Kai Hüning sent a picture [10:24]**

Soobin squints at his phone, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He read it once before and drifted back to sleep thinking it was a dream. Apparently, it’s not.

Both Beomgyu and Yeonjun are still asleep on Beomgyu’s too big of a bed. Yeonjun is between them, leg sprawled over Soobin’s thigh and elbow dangerously close to Beomgyu’s chest.

It’s twelve past already, well into the afternoon. The inside of Soobin’s mouth tastes like a sandbox.

He takes his phone off the charger and slips away from Yeonjun’s leg, wobbling over to Beomgyu’s desk where the three glasses of water from last night were. Not caring which is whose, he chugs down a glass.

Soobin unlocks his phone and makes his way out of the bedroom. The attached picture is a mirror selfie of Kai with Soobin’s juul in his other hand. He’s wearing a yellow pyjama shirt and red shorts but he’s colour blind so Soobin forgives him.

Soobin closes the door behind him quietly and taps the dial button.

A voice comes right after the second ring, “ _Hiya!_ ”

“I’m asking you out on a date.”

It’s silent. Soobin tells himself, he wants to do what he wants. He’s no longer sitting on the backseat of a car watching the city lights pass him by, thanking god that he looked away from the brush of sleeves and marble-brown eyes just to save himself a broken heart. Because if it breaks, it breaks. It doesn’t kill anybody.

Soobin hears laughter that sounds like Pure Heroine. “ _I’d love to, hyung_.”

“Don’t forget my USB.”

**Author's Note:**

> **mini glossary**
> 
> 1) _Sampoerna Mild_ : an Indonesian cigarette brand  
> 2) _Bintang_ : an Indonesian beer brand  
> 3) _Marjan_ : flavoured syrup to mix with drinks, heavily advertised during Ramadan (not a religious thing, please don't worry!)  
> 4) _Grab_ : ridesharing company that operates in Southeast Asia  
> 5) _doryeon-nim 도련님_ : something like 'young master', used to address the son of somebody rich/higher class  
> 6) _aegi 애기_ : 'baby'  
> 7) I put an umlaut in Kai's last name because I thought it'd be fun (Hüning instead of Huening)
> 
> also, i don't think kai is colour blind irl lol
> 
> my [twt](https://twitter.com/yakultco)  
> 


End file.
